Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov cancels daily press briefing
Putin’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov was supposed to get back to work after the New Year’s holidays on Monday, January 18. But instead, he has cancelled his daily press briefing just hours after Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny was remanded in custody for 30 days following his return to Moscow on Sunday.
The Kremlin spokesman’s daily conference call with journalists was set to take place around noon Moscow time. Around 1:00 p.m., participants were informed that it would take place “a bit later.” Finally, at 4:30 p.m., it became known that there would be no press briefing.
On January 17, Peskov told the website Podyom that he was unaware that Navalny had been taken into custody, claiming that he was on vacation until January 18.
Peskov held his last press briefing at the end of December 2020.
Khimki City Court judge Elena Morozova remanded Alexey Navalny in custody for 30 days earlier in the day on Monday. The opposition figure will be held in pre-trial detention until his court date on January 29, in connection with a complaint filed against him by Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service.
The Russian prison authorities are seeking to revoke Navalny’s probation in the Yves Rocher case and incarcerate him under a reinstated sentence on the grounds that he violated the terms of his probation. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to 3.5 years in prison, minus the 10 months he spent under house arrest.
Navalny flew home to Moscow from Berlin on Sunday, January 17, after spending five months in Germany recovering from chemical nerve agent poisoning. Police detained him at Sheremetyevo International Airport and took him to a police station in Khimki, where his remand hearing was held the next day.
Read more about Navalny’s return to Russia
- Alexey Navalny remanded in custody for 30 days pending trial
- Alexey Navalny calls on his supporters to take to the streets as his team announces protests on Saturday
- Bringing the court to him Here’s everything that’s happened since police detained Alexey Navalny in Moscow last night
- Alexey Navalny returns to Russia Police arrest the opposition politician after he arrives in Moscow
The Yves Rocher case
In 2014, Alexey Navalny and his brother Oleg were found guilty of embezzlement and laundering funds stolen from two Russian companies associated with the French cosmetics brand “Yves Rocher.” Oleg Navalny was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison and Alexey Navalny was given a 3.5-year probation sentence. The brothers pleaded not guilty, calling the case politically motivated. In 2017, the European Court of Human Rights declared the verdicts “unjust” and ordered the Russian authorities to pay the Navalny brothers compensation. Their sentences were never overturned, however.
Navalny’s poisoning
Alexey Navalny was on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow when he fell violently ill on August 20. The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk, where he was hospitalized in a coma; two days later he was transferred to Germany for treatment. On September 2, German officials confirmed that Navalny was poisoned with a substance from the Novichok group of nerve agents. Navalny was discharged from the hospital on September 23. Russia denies any involvement in the poisoning.